For a Few Dollars More

For Few Dollars More or Per qualche dollaro in piùis the second movie in Sergio Leone’s trilogy of western greats. Sergio Leone brings Clint Eastwood and Gian Maria Volonte back after a Fistful of Dollars to create this sequel. Sergio Leone, Italian Director, once again worked his magic in the Italian countryside. Leone created westerns unmatched by previous American westerns. Leone’s films embodied the cool collected gunslinger. In For a Few Dollars More, Clint Eastwood as Monco and Lee Van Cleef as Col. Douglas Mortimer are bounty hunters serving justice on those that escape the law. The two men are informed that El Indio played by Gian Maria Volonte known outlaw has escaped from prison and the two men set out to attain the reward for bring him in dead or alive.




Monco and Col. Douglas Mortimer team up to catch El Indio and his gang. The two men are after the outlaws to get the bounty. Along with needing to devise a plan to take down El Indio these two gunslingers must leave the comfort of being alone and face the difficulties of working together. In order to take down El Indio Monco must get into El Indio’s gang while Col. Mortimer attacks them form the outside. The two gunslingers must try and remain close to El Indio without him knowing their objectives.



The movie starts of with two scenes one of Monco entering the town and one of Col. Mortimer entering the town. We she both men establish their superior gunsling skills as they take down outlaws. Immediately we see a fascination in the kill. We see Monco take down his outlaw calmly, quickly and with style. While we see Col. Mortimer let his outlaw run while he chooses what weapon to kill him with. Once the decision is made the outlaw is taken off his horse and killed from incredible range with one shot. The two gunslingers then find out that El Indio has a price on his head and they both start out to find him. On the journey to find him each man realizes that the other has the same objective. Monco and Col. Mortimer met and after some dispute decide to team up and take down EL Indio and his gang. Monco plans to infiltrate El Indios gang and attack them from within while Col. Mortimer will attack them from outside. El Indio plans a bank robbery and Monco and Col. Mortimer plan to stop him then. El Indio and his gang are able to escape the gunslingers unharmed and with the money from the bank. The two gunslingers have trouble trusting each other. The men are true westerners and as everybody knows (or at least our class) true westerners isolate themselves and work best alone. But the task of taking down El Indio will require them both and so the eventually trust each other to complete the mission. After the Bank robbery Monco and Col. Mortimer follow EL Indios crew east. (Monco still in the gang and Mortimer following) The men attempt to steal the money but get caught, then in an attempt to get all the money El Indio relases them but says the men have stolen the money. Little to EL Indios knowledge the gunslingers actually did take the money. El Indio and the gang then attempt to get Monco and Col. Mortimer but the two men kill the gang one by one in the towns streets. At the end Col. Mortimer and EL Indio have a gun dual. Spoiler alert!!! IN the dual that Monco oversees the viewer learns that EL Indio killed Col. Mortimer’s sister and revenge was Mortimer’s drive not the money. Mortimer kills El Indio and takes only the locket El Indio stole from his sister leaving Monco the reward for El Indio and all his men a total of 27,000 dollars!



This movie explores several new things in a western. First it shows the hero teaming up and not able to do it on his own. Second it shows a fascination with the coolness of killing unmatched in other westerns. Sergio Leone’s trilogy of westerns (the Spaghetti Westerns) will forever become of the greatest westerns.

Unforgiven (1992)

With Unforgiven Clint Eastwood produced a sophisticated analysis of the emergence and spread of violence by skillfully breaking Western stereotypes with bitter irony. Not only the successful presentation of a topic, but also the reflection of a demythologizing film genre.

Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, once a notorious bad man, a killer of men, women, children, and anything else he didn't take a liking to. That is, until he met a woman who reformed him into being a better man. Many years have passed, and Munny's wife is long dead, leaving him to a life of farming and poverty with his two kids passing the time away quietly. He decides to take one last job when he hears of a $500 bounty offered by the madam of a brothel for the capture of a man who savagely beat one of her own. Munny joins up with his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and the "Schofield Kid" who told him about the job (Jaime Woolvett). Their primary opponent is the sheriff of the town, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), a sadistic, dictatorial sheriff who enforces gun control on a tiny frontier town and is doing whatever he thinks is right. When he denies justice to the prostitutes of the town brothel, one of whom has been slashed by a client, the women hire Munny to gain vengeance. When Munny comes to town, everyone soon learns a harsh lesson about the price of revengeful bloodshed and the deformability of ideas like "justice." "I don't deserve this," pleads Little Bill. "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it," growls Munny, simultaneously summing up the insanity of western violence and the legacy of Eastwood's Man With No Name.

Due to the incredible cast, this movie is a masterpiece. Eastwood isn't alone in this endeavor; the normally affable Gene Hackman is downright scary, with his twisted sense of justice, doing evil things with complete justification in his maintenance of the law. Freeman and Harris are both terrific in supporting roles, avoiding the traps that could easily have made their respective characters not believable. The editing is also top-notch, developing the story the right way, taking time to build up interest in the characters before sending them off into confrontations. The build-up is slow, but the tension is high, particularly when it approaches the astonishing climax.

Unforgiven is a quiet Western, but also very profound, almost poetic, in its portrayal of a man how must content with his new moral code in the face of revisiting the life he left behind and sowing the seeds of his past to try to make his future a better existence. It's also a dark film, both literally and figuratively, with a noticeable lack of light during the gloomiest of moments. The movie won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman).

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)

Robert Altman’s creation of the (some say debatable) western ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’ was a movie that took all the folklore and legend of the old West and turned upside down; the storyline completely disregards the heroism and male depiction in every western the True Grit class has seen up to this point.

The movie begins with a gambler named John McCabe arriving in the Northwest town of Presbyterian Church (Ironically named after the church that is RARELY frequented by the townsfolk). McCabe, due to rumors of gun fighting and badassness (although in reality not very badass) quickly takes a predominant position in the town… which wouldn’t be very hard for most anyone seeing as this was a mining town filled with simpleminded people.

Because McCabe is a businessman, he constructs a very simple brothel with 3 whores he purchases from a pimp in a close town and is able to start turning some profit. This is when the opium addicted leading lady arrives (Constance Miller), convincing McCabe that her skills as a businesswoman in the Brothel business are better then his. After the two become business partners Mrs. Miller creates quite a bit more profit and as a result the two open up a higher-class brothel, which makes them even more money. At the same time a serious relationship has begun to develop between Miller and McCabe.

After some time has passed, a couple of men from the Harrison Shaughnessy mining company turn up attempting to buy not only McCabe’s business but also the surrounding Zinc mines. Despite Shaughnessy’s violent reputation and Mrs. Miller’s warnings about the cavalier attitude Shaughnessy has when it comes to killing, McCabe doesn’t want to sell at the price they offer. And because McCabe is a big, scaredey baby trying to talk a big game, he gets nervous and doesn’t communicate well with, and oversteps his boundaries/worth during the deliberations.

A little after the Shaughnessy men leave, three bounty collecting killers sent by the disgruntled mining company arrive into town. (One killer was this badass guy wearing a coat so sexy PETA couldn’t force themselves to throw paint on it, the other looked like he was beaten with ‘the ugly stick’, and the last being this psycho kid who must have had some seriously morbid and sick thoughts) Anyway although McCabe is not a gun fighter and isn’t all that bad ass he stays in the town…even though this choice might have made him a BAMF it was canceled out because initially McCabe went up to the killers’ cabin and tried to satisfy whatever it was the killers might have wanted.

In the final scenes, when the killers finally come after McCabe, he is terribly frightened. He has been waiting for this moment since they have arrived and so was able to kill two men by shooting them in the back -first time gritters- and even manages to kill the third while he was fatally injured (although he still tricked the third guy too). All the while this is happening the townsfolk are banding together to put a fire out that started in church in the beginning of the gunfight… (Remember the townsfolk are oblivious to the gunfight). The last scene of the movie is a zoom in of McCabe while he dies and a zoom in of Mrs. Millers face as she gets high in an opium den (she is suggested to be the only person who may have realized/cared about McCabe’s death).

I think that yes, this was definitely a Western however I think it was completely in a different category from most any other Western film made. They depicted the lead man as someone who wasn’t necessarily brave, or a powerful figure over the woman in his life. Not only do these things make a difference but also the entire backdrop of the movie was very different from the open, sandy, and sunny planes of the true West. Last but not least Robert Altman kills the lead in the end of the movie, not only that but he kills him without allowing to leave a true mark on the people or townsmen. To say the least this movie definitely pushes all your cowboy stereotypes right out the saddle.

Rio Bravo- 1959

Directed by Howard Hawks, starring John Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance, Dean Martin as Deputy Sheriff Dude, Ricky Nelson as Colorado and Angie Dickinson as Feathers.
(John Wayne, our hero and Feathers are main Heroine)



Rio Bravo was John Wayne's reaction to High Noon. In which the American people were Shown as cowardly and unwilling to help fight for their town's safety.



Mission: The sheriff of a small town in Texas must keep custody of a murderer whose brother, a powerful rancher, is trying to help him escape. He and his deputies, a drunk and an old cripple, must find a way to hold out against the rancher's hired guns until the marshal arrives.



Dreamy rat-packer Dean Martin, as the Dude.--->

Plot:

In the town of Rio Bravo, Texas, Dude (Dean Martin) the town drunk, enters a saloon wanting a drink. Joe Burdette, Brother to a local Wealthy Rancher Nathan Burdette, see's Dude eying the liquor in his hand. And proceeds to mock dude by tossing a silver dollar into a used spittoon. Just as Dude is about to go for the spittoon, John T. Chance (John Wayne) kicks the spittoon away, looking at Dude with pity and disgust. As Chance turns to face Joe Burdette, Dude grabs a small piece of lumber and hits Chance over the head, knocking him unconscious. Dude then starts toward Burdette, but two of his hired men grab Dude. Burdette proceeds to punch Dude, multiple time in the face and body area, while the two men hold him so he can't fight back. When suddenly a random man at the saloon grabs Burdette's arm so he can't punch Dude again. Burdette draws his pistol and quickly shoots the bystander in the stomach. Burdette then leaves the saloon and heads for one across the street, thinking that no lawman is man enough to arrest him, and proceeds to buy a new drink, after murdering an unarmed man.

John T. Chance shortly enters the second saloon with his Winchester to arrest him for the murder of the bystander. But one of Burdette's men draws his revolver on him creating a stalemate. Dude enters the saloon behind two of Burdette's men and takes the revolver of the man standing in front of him, and proceeds to shoot the gun out of the hand of man aiming at Chance(John Wayne). Chance then smacks Burdette across the face with his rifle knocking him unconscious. He and dude then drag Burdette to jail.

Joe Burdette's brother, a powerful rancher, Nathan Burdette, hires a number of men to watch town in preparation to breaking Burdette out of jail. The only help Chance has are his deputies Dude and Stumpy , an old cripple with a silly voice and a shotgun.

While this is going on in town. A Wagon train enters town lead by a man by the name of Pat Wheeler, an old friend of Sheriff Chance, with a load of supplies from Fort Worth. Tensions are further strained by the presence of a young gunslinger hired by Wheeler to guard his wagons, Colorado (Ricky Nelson), and the arrival of a mysterious woman, Feathers, who quickly becomes romantically involved with Chance.

Best scene in the movie: the musical stylings of Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Stumpy.

Class Discussion/themes:

During our class discussion we came up with the majority of the western themes seen in this film.

Themes:

The main theme of the movie was that every character in the film was willing to fight, where as in High Noon no member of the town was willing to fight.

This though has a possibility of being because of the difference of the two towns in Rio Bravo and Highnoon. Where Rio Bravo is a town with more then one saloon and a higher value for a man's morals than his religion.

Race, class and gender all come in this film as well.

Race plays a very different dynamic then in the film we saw John Wayne in (The Searchers), where in this film he seems to bridge a racial gap with his Latino-American friend, Carlos Robante.

<- Carlos Robante

Gender plays a significant role in the film also. With the relationship between John Wayne and Feathers, who although seems to be one of the stronger woman we have been presented with thus far, still relies heavily on the men around her. This though is not true for Consuela Robante, a Latino-American woman, who holds a large amount of power over her husband Carlos. Are class discussed weather or not this was racist jab at Latino culture, that Hawks might be trying to say that Latino men are weak because they can't control their woman, but that was left up to debate.

The final and most prevalent theme is the working man's hero, played by John Wayne, where yet again the bad guy (Nathan Burdette) is a rich man, who is defeated by an honest, hardworking American. And in addition to that the men hired by the are such great cowards that when five guys defeat all 40 of them, that the those remaining clear out of town by the end of the day.

Over all it seemed that the class enjoyed this film, and that John Wayne is still a badass.

THE SEARCHERS (1956) JOHN FORD

The mission of Ethan (John Wayne), is to search for his nieces who have been captured by Cherokee Indians. He also desires to kill as many Indians as possible.

We start out in Monument Valley in a home with three kids and a mother and a father. An outsider approaches the house, and this man happens to be Uncle Ethan, who has been in the war and is now finally returning. During his stay at his sisters house, a group of Comanche Indians comes and raids the house killing his family and capturing his two young nieces. Ethan is very upset by this, and his goal now is to find the group they are with and rescue them.

His family had adopted a boy named Martin, or Marty (Jeffrey Hunter), who is a 1/8^th Cherokee. Marty was fortunate enough to be with Ethan at the time of the killing, and therefore the only other family member Ethan has. Together they travel across the United States in search of their beloved family members. On the way, they run into obstacles, see friends and encounter new people, as well as Indians. Ethan discovers on their journey, that Lucy was raped and killed, driving her fiancé to suicide, in the means of him charging the Indians on his own. After much traveling and talking to other groups of Comanche, Marty finds himself a wife, who eventually gets killed, and after five years they finally catch up with Scar. Once they get to Scar, it seems to Ethan and Marty that Debbie will forever be a Comanche. Once they discover this, Ethan loses all hope and wants to return home; Marty, however, will not give up and goes after Debbie, and as it turns out after once rejecting to leave, she complies and goes home with a steady heart.

In this movie, it is the first time we see the opening shot from the inside looking out at the vast Monument Valley. A shot that keeps the viewer inside, with a sense of claustrophobia and protection. John Wayne’s character, Ethan, lifts up his niece, Debbie, and this is an important moment showing the connection of family, and the everlasting love. We see this scene again, at the end of the movie after Ethan and Marty’s tedious journey. Ethan lifts up the older Debbie (Natalie Wood) and at this moment we see that Ethan wanted Debbie to come back the whole time even though he was convinced that she was full Comanche. This the first time we see racial tension with in a family. Although they are not blood related, Marty and Ethan, Marty is still family to Ethan. Marty is 1/8^th Cherokee Indian, and since they are from the south, and the movie was made in the 1960’s, a time where racism is still a big debate, the tensions are even higher than what could normally be expected between family members. In this movie we also see more violence. Not only fights between races, but fights between men and violence towards women. Wars between races have been seen in the past western movies, yet fights between two men have now become ritualized and must follow a pattern. In The Searchers we see a fight that has guidelines such as, no biting and no kicking, as well as a ritual of walking in circles a few times before throwing the first punch. In movies to come, fighting might become more like this and have an even more ritualistic feel to it. In one scene we also see Marty kick his Indian wife down a hill. We have not seen this much aggression in violence towards women. The Searchers was a hit when it was released into theaters and some believe this movie is one of the best western movies of all time. John Ford and John Wayne, we tip our cowboy hats to you.

Shane (1953)

I could say I enjoyed this movie, but then I’d be lying… Between all the Shanes and the Bang Bangs, during the middle of the movie the kid was right, I did want to shoot something... Myself. And I think the whole class would agree with me, well actually Millie just wanted to shoot little Joey. This definitely was not a favorite movie of ours, but it was made and our class watched it. So, here's a little bit about the movie Shane...

Shane’s mission is to settle down and find a place to stay. However, there becomes a settler conflict, which forces Shane to take action.

A loner, also known as Shane, comes across a nice family, the Starretts. The Starretts are homesteaders who want to farm the land. A three-day ride away from them are the ranchers. The Ryker brothers, also known as the ranchers, try to intimidate the homesteaders hoping they will leave what they believe to be their land. They do not want any farmers around, they just want to raise their cattle. However, the homesteaders are strong and won’t give in. Joe Starrett wants to build a life for his family, Marion and his son Joey on this land. Shane, who happens to be a gunslinger, befriends this family. Shane wants to settle down with the homesteaders however instead he gets into the middle of this tension between the homesteaders and the ranchers. A gunman killed one of the homesteaders, thus the tension kept increasing. So, Joe Starrett felt he had to do something, however instead Shane takes over and rides into town where he kills the Rykers and the gunman. Shane is a hero as he makes this western town safe again for all. He says goodbye to little Joey who looks up to Shane and then rides of into the distance…

Many critics believe that Shane is a masterpiece because of its simplicity and pure American style. The movie takes on stereotypes and embraces them. The characters’ appearances tell the audience exactly who they are. There is nothing shocking about the film, it is just straight to the point and takes on the truth. The film, Shane, sums of the West, such as individualism, initiative, persistence, lawlessness, violence and also racism. The entire movie encapsulates the West, which makes it such a well-known film in the Western genre.

Our class discussion consisted of bashing the entire movie, Shane himself and the little boy, Joey. Nothing really came out of our discussion as many of us, no wait, ALL of us did not like the movie. We discussed whether Shane is American or not. Many of us argued that he was not American and some argued that he was American. In my opinion, he takes on many traits of an American, thus making him American. Either way I think we could all agree on...

"Shane ... Shane ... Come Back!" -Joey

No Shane. Please don’t come back…

High Noon (1953)

High Noon (1953)

Although High Noon didn't have a smashing success at the box office when it was released in July 1952, it made a profound effect on westerns for years to come. In fact, John Wayne hated this movie so much that his next movie was a direct response to High Noon.

Mission: A town marshall goes looking for people to act as deputies when a murderer he sent to jail returns, seeking to kill him.

Plot: The town marshall of Hadleyville, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), has just gotten married to a Quaker named Amy (future Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly). He's about to leave town for good when he learns that there are three guys waiting at the train station for the noon train supposedly carrying Frank Miller, a murderer Kane convicted years ago and was to be hung until he was sentenced to jail and released. Once Frank Miller arrives, the three of them will come into town with the intent of killing Kane. The townspeople insist that he leave town with his wife, which Kane does, but he eventually turns around and comes back to town to fight. This upsets his wife, sending her to the train station to get a ticket to St. Louis. However, feeling uncomfortable with the three bad guys waiting for Miller, she decides to wait in the town's hotel.

Up until noon, Kane goes to the town's saloon, church, and even a couple of friends, who all refuse to help Kane fight the men for various reasons. Even his deputy, Harvey Pell, refuses to help him, and even fights Kane at one point in the film. Kane is eventually left to his own devices to fight the men.

Meanwhile, Helen Ramirez is fed up with her husband, deputy Harvey Pell, and prepares to leave town. Amy ends up meeting her, and the two of them proceed to the train station for the noon train.

At noon, the train with Miller arrives, while Ramirez and Amy board the train. The four men then come into town prepared to kill Kane. Kane successfully kills two of the men, but gets his arm wounded in the process. Upon hearing gunfire, Amy runs off the train, only to hide in the town. She ends up finding a gun, and kills the third gunmen in the back. However, Miller finds her and takes her hostage so that he can get to Kane. But before Kane comes and surrenders, Amy claws Miller's face, who as a result releases her. Kane then quickly shoots and kills Miller. Kane and his wife then leave the town for good.


Significance: Arguably one of the best film westerns, it was highly controversial when it was released. The film was seen as a response to

McCarthyism, which was particularly rampant at the time of the movie. High Noon is also significant for its real-time storytelling, as the film starts at 10:35 and goes til noon when the fight begins.
In addition, this film was a major favorite of President Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and even George W. Bush.


Discussion: We talked about the different themes of the film, particularly the actions of Ramirez, who seems to own pretty much everything in the town, such as the saloon, and Amy, who forgets her Quaker beliefs and ends up killing a man and helps her husband by scratching Miller, making him an easy target for her husband. We also talked about the town's refusal to help Kane, and also how they are left without any marshals or any kind of police once Kane leaves. We also mentioned the appeal of Kane, and especially considering his age and how a lot of westerns we have watched have people who are a lot younger than Kane, In addition, we also touched on Hollywood's response to "McCarthyism" of the movie since none of the town's residents agreed to help Kane.


Ryan Himel